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Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
- wglb 16y agoDidn't Bobby Inman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Ray_Inman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Ray_Inman attempt to start such a private company with private clients? While he had no problem speaking his mind, it doesn't appear that he was as pugnacious as Clarridge.
- brandnewlow 16y agoI met Clarridge during college. I took a class taught by an ex-spook where we read spy novels and talked about the ethical dilemmas involved. We read Clarridge's autobiography, "A Spy for all Seasons" and then he came and glowered at us for 3 hours and answered questions. He really doesn't like the CIA these days anymore. If you're interested in this sort of thing, his book's pretty darn good: http://www.amazon.com/Spy-All-Seasons-Life-CIA/dp/0743245369 http://www.amazon.com/Spy-All-Seasons-Life-CIA/dp/0743245369
- jimmybot 16y agoClarridge denies Pinochet caused thousands to disappear or be murdered under his dictatorship. He also calls Amnesty International a propaganda mill. Judge for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84 The end of the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84#t=2m20s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84#t=2m20s Reminds me that I can't handle the truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY#t=1m36s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY#t=1m36s
- Confusion 16y agoA good reminder that anyone can suffer from unexpected loopy opinions about some stuff. You can't take anything at face value.
- jdp23 16y ago"Over the past two years, he has fielded operatives in the mountains of Pakistan and the desert badlands of Afghanistan. Since the United States military cut off his funding in May, he has relied on like-minded private donors to pay his agents to continue gathering information about militant fighters, Taliban leaders and the secrets of Kabul’s ruling class." Sounds like the government is now outsourcing paying for private intelligence and security services as well as the work. I can see why 'small government' people would like this but from the oversight and human rights perspectives it seems like a really bad idea.
- w1ntermute 16y ago> from the oversight and human rights perspectives it seems like a really bad idea. Well, it's not like the government has a very good track record wrt human rights either.
- joe_the_user 16y agoGovernment has a terrible record but with the government, there's a slim possibility of sunshine appearing sooner or later. With private industry, it's even less so.
- zokier 16y agoI'm not so sure. With private industry a good willed (and relatively wealthy) entrepreneur can just make a cheaper offer and hope to get the job, and actually try to respect human rights. With government you are kinda stuck with what you got.
- cynest 16y agoThere are several problems with this: 1. said entrepreneur is likely to be from a similar background, eg having served in the same agency, and thus being exposed to the same culture, and from this might very well be a bit desensitized to human rights abuses. 2. a cheaper, but also more ethical, solution isn't necessarily available. An organization with fewer morals has more tools available to it, such as nonempty death threats, which ultimately lower costs. A cheaper solution has to cut somewhere else to compete. 3. sometimes an organization cannot completely keep tabs on employees, especially an intelligence organization. Simply put, this is the wishful thinking wherein the thinker believes that the private sector will correct for any nastiness and then creates a fantasy to support this belief in the specific case being discussed.
- ahi 16y agoThere are plenty of private intelligence agencies. It's an industry pretty much like any other. Few are dumb enough to compete with the CIA. Why hire a private agency in Afghanistan when the American taxpayer is already paying for those services? If you run a private intelligence firm, just how desperate for customers/donors do you have to be to get an article in the New York Times?
- joe_the_user 16y agoYes, The "intelligence community" is a community - whether a given actor is in or out of government does not seem as important as whether they in the community. Secrecy grants it's possessors the ability to act very informally.
- tsotha 16y agoWe probably need outfits like this. The CIA seems to have completely lost the ability to do human intelligence. They get punished when they deal with unsavory characters, which is a necessity in that business. So they don't bother, and rely instead on signals intelligence. Nobody ever got fired at CIA running a program to listen in on jihadi phone calls. But you're not going to pick up everything through signals intelligence.
- shkb 16y agoSpecifically they got their asses handed to them by the Soviets in human intelligence, and choose to do what they were good at. But why would you need a group like this, with all the problems of privatizing intelligence operations? Would reform be a better choice? Or the acknowledge that the disadvantages of covert operations are great enough to find an alternative (similar to how the disadvantages of conventional warfare lead to covert ops)
- alnayyir 16y agoMaking it politically viable for a government organization to inadvertently fund people like Osama Bin Laden in order to gather intelligence is hardly what most people think of as reform even if it could be effective.
- kprobst 16y agoMy reading of material like `The Sword and The Shield` and other books sourced from the Mitrokhin papers don't really support the idea that the Soviets had much success in HUMINT, especially after the 50s.
- tsotha 16y agoThe problem is "reform" is what got us where we are today. When a human intelligence operation blows up it's embarrassing. Congress gets involved "reforming" things. So you get stupid rules like "The CIA can never pay someone who's been accused of human rights violations". People genuinely put the interests of their country first and they get hung out to dry after the next election cycle. So the people who survive do what risk-averse bureaucracies always do: nothing.
- bane 16y agoI wonder what this kind of thing is called? Bounty Hunter? Mercenary? Vigilante? Somehow, none of those labels really seem to fit quite right. Is this sort of thing something new?
- dguido 16y agoIn related news, ex-spy who runs his own private c.i.a. no longer has any business due to being featured in the NYT.
- geekfactor 16y agoThis article reads like the back-story of a season of 24... Owner of intelligence-agency-for-hire is "determined to remain a player." President/government has a different take on things and attempts to shut down the agency. Agency plants WMDs on American soil in order to distract country and guarantee relevance. Wait. That was a season of 24. Oh well. In actuality I'm surprised at myself for being surprised that such outfits exist.
- ilamont 16y agoIt is difficult to assess the merits of Mr. Clarridge’s secret intelligence dispatches; a review of some of the documents by The Times shows that some appear to be based on rumors from talk at village bazaars or rehashes of press reports. Actually, the New York Times could have gone back to older dispatches and evaluated whether the bazaar-based predictions came true, or were otherwise accurate. The danger of using such information is much of it is not true, greatly exaggerated, subjective, etc., but is nevertheless being taken seriously by some military, diplomatic and intelligence staff and helping drive strategy and tactics on the ground. This potentially creates even more problems, misunderstandings, and mistrust and can even lead to unnecessary death and destruction.